Page 69 of Entangled in Them

I reached for Kodee, but the bed was empty, his side already cooled.

Low voices came from the living room, and my stomach knotted with anxiety. Slipping out of bed, I padded my bare feet across the plush carpet and came to a halt at the bedroom door. It was open barely a crack, but it was enough to allow their voices to drift through.

It was Ryan’s voice I identified first.

“Jesus Christ. I knew it was a bad idea to have a woman around. I could have really hurt her. Fuck, I could have killed her.”

Then Dillon spoke. “It was an accident, Ryan. You didn’t know what you were doing.”

“You think that makes things any better?” Ryan roared. “That I didn’t know what I was doing? I can’t trust myself. Do you know how that feels? What would you be saying to me right now if I’d murdered her in my sleep?”

Dillon again. “You’d never have done that.”

“How do you know? For fuck’s sake. She’d probably be safer if we handed her back to the Capello brothers.”

Kodee snapped, “Don’t say that.”

“Why not? It’s the truth, isn’t it? In fact, I should be the one to go, not her. I’m the real problem here.”

I couldn’t hide away in the bedroom any longer. I burst out into the room and ran for him, clinging to his arm. “Ryan, please. Stop it. It’s your PTSD from the war. It’s not you. You can’t leave.”

His arm wrapped around my shoulders, and he lowered his forehead to the top of my head before letting me go.

“And I can’t live with myself if I hurt you.”

Tears blurred my vision. I couldn’t be the reason Ryan left. I’d never wanted to do something to risk breaking the three of them up. Even though I hadn’t done anything, and this wasn’t my fault, it was my presence here causing this situation. If Ryan had attacked one of the other men during his nightmare, they’d have been able to fight him off, and, I imagined, probably had done so in the past. I remembered seeing the bruises on Kodee and how he had fobbed me off, telling me that not everything in business ran smoothly. I’d assumed he’d gotten into trouble doing a drop, and I’d been worried for him, but I’d never imagined the threat had come from inside their home.

But Ryan wasn’t a threat, not like that. He was a good man who had seen and probably done terrible things in the name of serving his country. He’d sacrificed a limb and would never be the same again. Kodee and Dillon had accepted him, despite all his flaws—fuck, because of them, even. It wasn’t as though they weren’t flawed themselves; we all were. They’d been happy together, and Kodee may even have been going some way into helping Ryan heal from everything that had happened to him. Then I’d come along and fucked everything up, and I didn’t think I could live with myself for that. I didn’t care what happened to me. All I wanted was for each of them to be okay.

Ryan caught sight of the red marks around my throat, and his features tightened with pain and anger and shame. “Fucking hell, Rue. I can’t even begin to tell you how sorry I am.”

I shook my head. “It’s okay.” My sore throat made my voice hoarse. “You didn’t know what you were doing. It’s not your fault.”

“It’s not okay. I can’t believe I hurt you.”

He looked as though he was going to cry, and my heart broke. I wanted to take away his pain, but I had pain of my own, and it was a pain he’d caused.

“How can I promise I won’t do it again, when I didn’t even know I was doing it in the first place?” He shook his head and dragged his hand through his hair. “I should look for somewhere else to live. I can’t trust myself around you.”

“No, please. Don’t do that. This is your home.”

He was with the men he loved. I couldn’t stand that he’d been through so much and was having to give up everything for me. It wasn’t as though I was even a permanent feature. The Capello brothers could show up tomorrow. I couldn’t let Ryan give up his life for me.

“That’s enough,” Kodee interrupted. “Go into the office, Ryan. And Dillon, you, too. We’ll talk about this in there.”

It was soundproofed. The message couldn’t be clearer. They wanted to talk without me overhearing.

Once more, it seemed, I was on the outside.

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